Seating update...the beanbag arrived and I am loving it...so is Nellie.
The great thing about it is that I can change the way is sits on the floor so I'm lounging low or sitting high up like a dining chair. Nellie and I can easily snuggle and share the seat. Overall, a good choice. The cover is quite sturdy and seems to shed Nellie hair well. I bought some super-fuzzy material to make a cover for it that I can take off and wash.
I'm making more progress on the scanning project. I have scanned almost another whole box of pictures and letters, and moved all the photos and family history stuff from my ancient Mac mini to my newer PC and saved it all on a thumb drive and also on an external hard drive. So now everything is all in one place. I feel like I can see the end of the tunnel for this project. I've also gotten to the point where there is no "should I scan this or not," only options are now "scan" or "circular file." The end of the most extensive project I've ever started is close. Whew!! I'll be very happy to no longer be the only one with all the pictures and letters.
I still haven't called an electrician...don't know what my reticence is about. I have done a little work on the electrical though. I plugged in the radiant floor and the ceiling fan. I am in LOVE! Having warm floors is a little bit addicting. The other morning, I woke up to the heater being out...ran out of propane sometime before sun-up. The thermostat said it was 65 in the house. The floor though was 68. I stood barefoot on the warm floor and didn't care that the air in the house was a little chilly. Lovely! Went out and changed the propane to the full tank and the house warmed up quite quickly despite the outside temp being about 24 degrees F.
Some observations about keeping the house warm. I feel like the straw skirt has done a lot to insulate the floors. Then the radiant heat is amazing! When the low temps are in the single digits or teens, I leave the heater running all the time, even through the night, to maintain about 70-ish degrees. If the outside temps are in the 20's, I leave the heater on at night, but usually sometime between 1am and 3am it gets too hot for sleeping in the loft so I turn off the heater. In that case, when I get up in the morning it is usually in the low 60's in the house. Good opportunity to snuggle Nellie while the house warms a little. When night-time temps are in the 30's or above, I turn the heater off when I go to bed, makes for good sleeping. Nellie wears a sweatshirt to bed when I turn the heater off and that seems to keep her warm enough. Propane...I use about $30 of propane about every two weeks, so $60/month for heating. Haven't had the floor on long enough to say how much electricity it uses. I have it set for 70 degrees for two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening, then maintaining 60 degrees otherwise.
This past weekend was quite cold here in the desert. Highs in the teens and low 20's, lows in the single digits. My water has worked very well thus far. My heated water hose has been amazing! The spigot in the shop is insulated and has a heat lamp on it. But you guessed it. Turned on the water on Friday morning and voila! no water. Yes, I had soap all over my hands. And yes, I had a few gallons of water stored under the sink, thank heaven. So the investigation began with making sure the hose was still plugged in and working. Yes. Then to the spigot, seemed to be ok. It dripped a bit when I unhooked the hose and the knob turned easily. Figured it must be frozen down in the pipe between the spigot and floor, or in the cement of the shop floor which is 9 inches thick. Bummer! Ran to the store and got a heat tape. Put it on the pipe between the spigot and floor and waited for a little while to give it time to work. No luck after a couple of hours. So, not the pipe, must be frozen in the floor. Got out the hair dryer and tried warming up the cement, which is more action than my hair dryer sees in a year. (hehe) Worked on that for about an hour and a half. No luck. The cement was warming up, the heat lamp was directed at the floor too, so I figured it either just needed a bit of time, or it was really solid and I would be hauling water until spring thaw. I made a little tent out of a tarp to hold the heat from the lamp in a little bit and left it so I could come in and warm up a little. I had left the kitchen faucet open so I would know when the water was flowing again and lo and behold a little while after I came in to warm up we had water!! It was quite exciting! Just super glad the pipes weren't broken.
Note to self: Don't procrastinate doing the dishes. Fun stuff!!!...Last year when Ticklebelly Bungalow and I were in San Diego I had a lot of people ask where my TV was. I generally use my computer to watch stuff, but I splurged a little and bought a mini projector for $62. At that price my expectations weren't very high. I got out an old sheet that I'd been saving for testing embroidery patterns and hung it from the storage loft as a screen. Empire Strikes Back was FANTASTIC on my big screen! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Can you email me the link for that projector, it looks super!! We are having a hard time adjusting, one problem after another! Glad you found a spot that felt like home even if it wasn't with us in San Diego :)
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